Shaw, Robert Gould (1837–63) Union army officer. Born in Massachusetts into one of the nation's wealthiest and most staunchly abolitionist families, Shaw had a privileged early childhood but suffered after the family moved to New York and then to Europe. He began drinking and considered himself a failure. His service in the Union army during the
Civil War changed his life; he was a capable soldier who fought at
Antietam (1862) and at
Cedar Creek (1864) and who loved military life. In 1863, Shaw, himself not an abolitionist, rejected but then under pressure accepted the colonelcy of the North's first “colored” regiment, the Fifty-fourth Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. After coercive training under Shaw, the unit performed poorly in its first military engagement, at Hilton Head, South Carolina. In July 1863, however, the troop performed ably, holding off Confederate forces at James Island, South Carolina, until leaders could organize a defensive retreat. Shaw then volunteered his troops to attack
Fort Wagner, the first step in the assault on Charleston. Although the assault failed, the Fifty-fourth fought valiantly; 272 were killed, wounded, or captured, including Shaw, who died in the attack. The exemplary performance by the unit helped to dispell the idea that blacks lacked the intelligence or the discipline to perform well as soldiers.
A statue by Augustus Saint-Gauden on the Boston Common honors Shaw, and the history of the Fifty-fourth was the subject of an Academy Award-winning motion picture,
Glory (1989).
